I am a Senior Lecturer at the School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at City, University of London. I am part of the Department of Computer Science within the school of School of Mathematics, Computer Science & Engineering. I am a member of the giCentre and my research focus is on the analysis, interpretation and visualisation of data, primarily related with biomedical experimentation.

I have several opportunities for research students, check the section Positions and contact me if you are interested in Biomedical Image Analysis.


I wrote the book Biomedical Image Analysis Recipes in MATLAB: For Life Scientists and Engineers which was published in June 2015 by the editorial Wiley-Blackwell. Cover of the book:Biomedical Image Analysis Recipes in MATLAB: For Life Scientists and Engineers
I am an academic editor of the journals:
I have been chair of several conferences, among them the BMVA 1-Day Meeting: Computer Vision and Modelling in Cancer on the 11th October 2017 and Medical Image Understanding and Analysis (MIUA), which followed the excellent spirit and results of previous years. Please visit http://www.city.ac.uk/miua2014 for photographs, proceedings and other details of MIUA 2014.
I have delivered many presentation, among them I was a speaker at 2017 Medical Image Understanding and Analysis Conference on the 11th July 2017 and Pint of Science Festival on the 17 of May 2017 in London.
I have served as a member of several committees like the Executive Committee of the British Association for Cancer Research between 2013 and 2016 and the Executive Committee of the Vision and Imaging Technical Network of the IET
I am a Senior Member of IEEE and a Member Level 1 of Sistema Nacional de Investigadores CONACYT (Mexico)



My area of research is Image Analysis of Biomedical Images. This research covers three particular areas: the acquisition (I have worked with  light and fluorescent microscopes as well as access to confocal and multiphoton microscopes) of biomedical images, the analysis through algorithms, mathematical models and statistical methodologies, which provide quantitative measurements, and the interpretation of the data (2D images, 3D volumes, 2D+t videos, 3D+t volumetric time lapse data sets). This final stage is crucial, what conclusions can we draw from the images? Can we reveal something of the underlying biological processes of cells or tumours? What are the effects of drugs or treatments? By using image analysis we are able to extract a wealth of information that is present in the images we capture, and that it is not possible to obtain by simple qualitative analysis.


My overall objective is to shed some light into the causes and processes of human illnesses especially cancer, and the infection or inflammation processes related to this diseas. By analysing the images and videos from many experiments I hope to and contribute in finding ways to cure and prevent them.

I have analysed different biological processes - cell migration, vascular permeability, red cell velocity, inflammation - and this research has lead to more than 25 journal papers.

I have developed Image Analysis algorithms and software developed the following experiments:

  • Tracking of fluorescently labelled Red Blood Cells,
  • Quantification of vascular permeability to FITC-Dextran in tumours,
  • Measurement of cell migration in vitro.
  • Geometrical analysis of vessels from immunohistochemistry images stained for CD-31,
  • Topological analysis of tumour vasculature in light microscopy images,
  • Measurement of fluorescence intensity for vessel and perfusion quantification.

Academic Background

My undergraduate degree is from the  National University in Mexico (UNAM, Facultad de Ingeniería) in 1993 with the degree of Ingeniero Mecánico Electricista, (BS Mechanical and Electrical Engineering). I then obtained an M.Sc. (MSc in Communications and Signal Processing) and D.I.C. from Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine in 1994. From 1995 until 2000 I worked in Mexico for several years as a Lecturer at ITESM and ITAM  teaching Communications and Electromagnetics related subjects.  From 2001 until 2004 I returned to the United Kingdom to obtain a Ph.D. in Computer Science under the supervision of Dr. Abhir Bhalerao in the area of Medical Image Analysis with a thesis on Multiresolution Volumetric Texture Segmentation. At the same time, I worked as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the Department of Computer Science,  University of Warwick. From 2005 to 2011 I worked as a Research Associate and then Research Fellow at The University of Sheffield in the Tumour Microcirculation Group. In May 2011 I joined the University of Sussex as a Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering. I moved to City University London in July 2013.




Professional and Outreach Activities



Academic Editor
Conference Chair Medical Image Understanding and Analysis,
City University London, 9-11 July 2014
Conference Co-chair ANGIONET Angiogenesis Network, Sheffield University, January 2007 (with Markus Owen, University of Nottingham).
Journal Reviewer IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging
IEEE Transactions on Image Processing
IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks
IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics
Pattern Recognition
Pattern Recognition Letters
Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine
American Journal of Pathology
Annals of the BMVA
Biotechniques
Expert Systems
Pattern Analysis and Applications
Machine Vision and Applications
Signal Image and Video Processing
Conference Area/Session Chair BMVA 2007
MIUA 2010
MIUA 2011
MIUA 2012
MIUA 2013
Conference Technical Program Committee MICCAI 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013
MIUA 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013
IEEE ISCC 2006, 2007, 2008.
IMAGAPP 2008,2009, 2010.
ACCV 2009, 2010
CompIMAGE 2010
ICBEB 2013
Science Ambassador National Science and Engineering Week 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011.